The 4th informative workshop of the project "Regional Cooperation for a Sustainable Management of Water Resources in the Maghreb - CREM" was organized in Tunis, from April 10 to 12, 2018, by the Federal Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), in collaboration with the Sahara and Sahel Observatory.
During these days, the activities carried out in the 3 study areas: Remila-F'kirina Plain (Algeria), Shtouka Plain (Morocco), and Nebhana Basin (Tunisia), were returned and discussed. They focused on:
- the methodologies developed for a better assessment of groundwater withdrawals with recourse in particular to satellite imagery
- optimization of piezometric monitoring networks
- the data collection device
- the development of aquifer management models
In addition, the results of research activities conducted at the Nebhana Basin (Tunisia), intended to provide decision support for the agricultural use of water, were presented by students involved in the project.
This restitution workshop was also an opportunity to discuss more general issues related to the challenges of water in the Maghreb region, and the Middle East (Keynote Speaker, Dr. Armin Margane), through presentations and screening documentary films on the Souss Massa basin (Morocco) and the uses of water resources in the Nebhana basin (Tunisia).
Some of the strong ideas from this workshop include:
- the adoption of the participatory method, and the exchange of communication experiences with the operators for a better management of the resource, more particularly in the field of the sensitization relative to the illicit drilling
- better interaction between the university and the actors / decision-makers
The audience for this workshop, which brought together about 70 people (40% of them women), consisted mainly of CREM project partners from the 3 countries from the Ministries of Water Resources (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), representatives of the BGR, GIZ and OSS, as well as PhD students involved in the project.
The CREM project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), consists of two components:
- The GIZ Module "Exchange of Good Practices for Integrated Management of Water Resources"
- The BGR Module "Improving Knowledge of Groundwater Resources"
It is implemented in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia by the OSS, the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and the Federal Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR).
The measure "Maghreb storytellers, agents of change for the preservation of water", is also attached to the CREM project, and has helped to strengthen the capacities of women in the 3 countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), to enable them to raise public awareness about the preservation of water through storytelling.